WI: Eleanor of Aquitaine had a son with Louis VII of France

Well, assuming he lives and has male children, he brings the duchy of Aquitaine into the royal domain.

You need to have quickly an union between the kingdoms of France and England, otherwise there will never be the wine of Bordeaux as we know it !
 
More importantly, apart from Henry II, it butterflies away the whole line of the Plantagenets. No Richard the Lionheart, no John Lackland. While Henry has some time ahead of him, he has to marry someone powerful in order for him to be able to claim the throne of England. Where will he look? Champagne, Toulouse, Brittany? The Capétiens also have a whole other line, since Philippe II is butterflied away (as well as Louis IX and Philippe IV). Will they still have the same drive to centralize the kingdom?

And while Henry still has Normandy, Anjou, Maine and so on, he is probably not stronger in France than the French king himself, since the latter can depend on Aquitaine. It might make it harder for him to get Brittany.
 
More importantly, apart from Henry II, it butterflies away the whole line of the Plantagenets. No Richard the Lionheart, no John Lackland. While Henry has some time ahead of him, he has to marry someone powerful in order for him to be able to claim the throne of England. Where will he look? Champagne, Toulouse, Brittany? The Capétiens also have a whole other line, since Philippe II is butterflied away (as well as Louis IX and Philippe IV). Will they still have the same drive to centralize the kingdom?

And while Henry still has Normandy, Anjou, Maine and so on, he is probably not stronger in France than the French king himself, since the latter can depend on Aquitaine. It might make it harder for him to get Brittany.
I don't think Aquitaine really made a difference.For Henry,it was actually more trouble than it was really worth.The place was full of lords who thinks that they are really kings of their own fief.Besides that,if Eustace died as he did prematurely,then events are going to unfold as it was in OTL.
 
It might not make much of a difference to Henry. But it sure does to Louis VII. He can rely on much more extensive lands to resist any dastardly encroachments by that young upstart from Anjou. He has a somewhat wider tax base. The economy of Aquitaine does not become as intertwined as it did with England (that's basically what Matteo was referencing with regard to Bordeaux wine). And it's also a gateway to Spain (think Richard I's marriage to Berangaria of Navarre and the alliances with Castile during the Hundred Years' War). It does not prove a staging ground for a flanking attack such at is did when the Bouvines campaign happened. And so on... It really was, almost literally, a pain in the a** for French kings.
 
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